et ne condemnabitur
by vennat
Summary: Operation Sleepover was a success.


Robin paused to check the time. The bright red LEDs blink up at him from his wrist, 4:56 am. He considers this for a moment, before deciding that he has time for another check of the Tower before he showers and he's ready for the day.

He didn't sleep at all last night. Didn't even try, in fact. Images of Slade and his friend's burning forms would undoubtedly sear his eyelids, so he figured he would skip the nightmares and get straight to the obsessi- controlled patrol. It was fine, he could handle this. A few nightmares, nothing he couldn't handle. He had faced other villains who had left him with horrible ideas rattling in his brain- Scarecrow, Joker, Riddler, the list goes on.

Batman and Alfred were there then. His brain whispers to him. You had people making sure you slept, making sure you felt safe. He stops for a second, his thoughts freezing his feet. He shakes the thoughts from his head. Shut up.

He continues on his patrol.

—

As he showers, Robin's body voices it's complaints against the lack of sleep and incessant patrolling. Young muscles twitch and shake under pale skin, lack of food and sleep and over abundance of use making them languid and shaky. It only takes a single recollection of his team screaming in pain for him to push the stinging sinew to the back of his mind.

He cannot let his friends be out in danger like that again. He's their leader, their protector. It's his fault that Slade was able to put the toxin in their blood, his fault that his friends were suffering, his fault, his fault.

His back hits the side of the shower. A grimace comes over his face as a wave of self loathing rushes through him, regret and shame weighing heavily against his chest.

He takes a shaky gasp. Standing around crying about his lot isn't going to keep his friends safe. He needs to keep moving, keep working. Make sure they're safe, make sure they're ok. No time for rest. He thinks, and pulls on some hidden reserve of strength.

He'd do anything for his team. Anything for his friends. Anything for his family.

Anything.

—

He can't quite seem to remember the last time he slept.

He's in the kitchen, drinking heavily from a mug of coffee. A thought enters his head errantly about how he wasn't allowed more than half a cup at Wayne Manor, but he's fairly sure this is his third. Fourth? All he knows is that this is the only thing keeping him going. That, and the churning fear cradled in his stomach, left over from the incident with Slade.

"Rob!" Robin jerks, splashing coffee onto his gloved hand. It steams, and slowly sweeps into his glove and towards the fragile skin of his calloused hands. He can't quite remember what the proper response to stop it should be, so he leaves it. Finally dragging his attention up to Cyborg's waiting face. It's another few seconds before he can dredge up the words to properly respond.

"Yes?" Cyborg gives him a weird look.

"Dude, are you okay? You look like you're running on like 2%." Robin immediately straightens, instinct winning out over potent exhaustion.

"Fine. What do you need?" Again, Cyborg gives him a look, one Robin can't quite decipher.

"It's 9:08. You set a meeting this morning for 8:45, and we've been looking everywhere for you. You comin'?" Robin immediately nods.

"Of course. I forgot about something else I had to take care of, sorry to keep you all waiting." He and Cyborg both know that there is nothing in this kitchen Robin could have possibly forgotten about, but Cyborg lets it go, waving a hand in the air.

"Nah, man, you're the only one who's ever on time to those things anyway." Cyborg leads the way from the room, Robin trailing after him.

They travel together in silence, the only noise the loud clatter of Cyborg's feet against the metal floor. Cyborg sends small, concerned glances over at the other boy as they walk, but he seems to be staring intently into the depth of his coffee mug, oblivious to his surroundings. His feet make no sound against the floor, Cyborg notices, He usually only does that when he's on edge. Nervous, slipping into protective habits.

He feels a pulse of worry worm its way through him. He doesn't know what's wrong with his leader, his friend. But he knows inherently that something is wrong. The plain, black and white mask covers is eyes, the only indicator Cyborg can use to tell what's truly wrong with the smaller boy. He thinks that may be why Robin is so reluctant to take it off. A protective barrier, in more ways than one.

They stop in front of the doors to the meeting room. Cyborg quickly enters the interface of the Tower, stopping the door from automatically hissing open, which would rob him of his opportunity to confront his friend.

"Hey." Robin turns, the minuscule jump in his shoulders the only indication of how deep in thought he was. "You okay man? You looked kinda far away for sec there." Robin seems to jerk himself upright, and the worry squirming around in Cyborg's chest takes root. He stands a bit straighter, holds himself a bit larger, projecting an air of readiness and calm.

"I'm fine, Cy, don't worry. C'mon, we've got a meeting to get to." He takes a step forward, and Cyborg let's the doors open automatically as they should. He follows his friend in, form held steady, balance impeccable. He can tell the amount of thought placed into the stance, how every step is a calculated move.

He isn't sure what Robin is hiding. But he'll find out. He'll do whatever he has to, for his friends.

—

Robin feels like his body is on high alert. He can't quite remember how to calm down, images of his friends being tortured swirling through his head. He can't stop thinking about them.

Are they safe?

He had ended their meeting today after saying nothing of any importance. Had said something to the effect of You're all doing great, a little training never hurt anyone, stay vigilant. He had barely managed to dredge anything up from his muddled consciousness to discuss.

Are they safe?

Robin had gone to the control room, poring over the safeties and fail safes in the Tower until his eyes ached. And then he kept going, sure he had missed something. Sure that his mistakes would once again cost the others something.

Are they safe?

Eventually, after he had checked the security system for an innumerable amount of times, he had gone up the common room. He figured he would get some of Raven's tea, see if he had any chance of calming himself enough to sleep.

Once he was there, the others roped him into watching TV with them, and he wasn't able to come up with the correct words to remove himself, get some tea, and retire to his room. Communicating was hard. So he grunted, and settled himself on the cushion farthest from the others, who were sort of all piled/leaning on each other in the corner, and tried to focus on the show.

His attention waned quickly, and soon he found it difficult to stay awake. He practices the techniques Batman had taught him over the years for how to avoid passing out, but even those were never made to dissuade his exhausted body from a well deserved rest.

In a few moments, he's asleep. Raven quietly whispers an incantation, sliding a pillow under his head and pulling a blanket over his body. With this, she draws the others attention, but they do nothing more than lower the volume. They can recognize when their leader needs rest, and right now it's obvious how much he needs sleep.

—

"Are they safe?" He hears himself whisper. Slade's voice reverberates around him, slipping into his ear and bouncing around in his head.

"I don't know, apprentice, are they?" He laughs again, and Robin can feel his hand in a steel grip around his shoulder.

Suddenly his team is in front of him, on their knees. Terror is obvious in their faces, and Robin can see Starfire crying off to one side. He turns around, sick to his stomach at the sight of them so scared. The moment he's facing the other direction, Slade shoves a remote in his hands.

"It's all on you apprentice. You're their leader, you're responsible for them." He ghosts away from Robin, melting into the inky blackness surrounding them.

Robin turns again, and suddenly his team is screaming- bodies glowing orange and writhing in pain, arching off the ground. He looks down, finds his fingers pressed down on the button in the center of the remote. He drops the remote, and it clatters the ground, breaking in two. His friends stop screaming, and they sit up, slowly, faces once again clear of pain but now etched with disgust.

" Your fault." Beast Boy says. It's hard and cold, but burns like fire against his skin, as if he had spat venom rather than spoken the truth.

" None of this would have happened if it were not for you." Starfire is glaring at him, eyes glowing green. Raven, Cyborg, and Beast Boy join her. They begin to whisper together, and Robin can't quite make out what they're saying. But then they get louder, and he wishes he never heard them.

" Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty…"

—

Robin wakes up with the accusatory words of his friends still ringing in his ears. His heart is pounding, sweat rolls from his brow, but his training doesn't let him jerk up and run like he'd like to. Instead, he opens his eyes slowly. Begins to assess himself before he realizes where he is.

Realizing he's somewhere safe, somewhere he recognizes, he springs up from the couch, the blanket slipping off him as he shoots off. His breath comes in heavy gasps, and he wraps his arms around himself tightly.

"Come on Robin, c'mon. It's fine. You're fine. The team is fine. Just…" he blows out a sharp breath. "A short patrol won't hurt anyone. Just to double check." He knows he's lying to himself. Knows one patrol will turn into 3, 4, 5. But he also knows that he's not getting back to sleep. Not tonight.

He shakes out his arms and hands, clenching gloved fingers tightly for a moment before releasing. Robin let's out a shaky sigh.

"Ok. Let's go." he turns, and stalks out the door quickly, failing to notice the other four teens staring at him in concern.

—

"What do we do?" Beast Boy is the first to voice his concern. All awake now, they spread out across the couch, no longer piled on each other.

"What is wrong with Robin? Is this an Earth practice I am unaware of?" Starfire's voice is sweet, oblivious, but also aware that they are all missing something.

"This ain't normal. Something's wrong with Robin, and he doesn't want to tell us. He seems determined to do it on his own." Cyborg adds.

"His energies are bad. When he was first waking up, his fear was rolling off of him in waves." Beast Boy looked over at Raven in surprise.

"Fear? What was he so afraid of?" Raven shrugged at Beast Boy.

"Not sure. I try not to actively follow any of your dreams, it's sort of an invasion of privacy."

"Maybe just ask him what's up?" Cyborg asks the group as a whole. To him, it seems the most obvious course of action.

"Friend Cyborg, I am not sure if you have noticed, but friend Robin does not seem too inclined to share the secrets about himself." The others slump over a little at Starfire's words, realizing the truth behind them.

"So… what do we do then? We can't exactly corner him and force it out of him." Beast Boy and Cyborg look over at Raven with an odd look in their eyes, and she sighs at their expressions.

"That's exactly what we're going to do, aren't we." She says in a resigned voice.

Cyborg stands from the couch, an eager expression taking over his face. He rubs his hands together in anticipation, in a vaguely villain-esque gesture.

"Alright, so here's the plan…"

—

Robin is on his third circuit of patrol. His eyes feel heavy, and exhaustion threatens to drop his body. But he can't rid his mind of the images of his friends screaming at him, telling him it's his fault.

Because, it is. Robin is their leader, he should be able to protect them. He should be able to stop things like this from happening to his friends. He wants to believe that it was Slade's fault, but… he knows the truth. Knows he is guilty for everything that happened to every one of the Titans.

So he continues to patrol, sure that if he's vigilant, he will be able to stop any of this from happening ever again, sure he'll be able to forgive himself and get them to forgive him. Just as long as he's vigilant.

"Robin!" Robin jumps, startled, and turns around towards the voice calling him. Beast Boy stands at the end of the hall, a large smile on his face.

"Dude, dude, you gotta come here. You have. To see this!" He runs forwards and grabs Robin's wrist, ignoring the full body flinch he feels, and begins to pull Robin towards the living room of the tower.

Robin follows along, too surprised to really realize that Beast Boy is dragging him somewhere to show him something "really cool." Which is, honestly, worrying.

They work their way quickly through hallways, and Robin loses track of where they are, tired mind lost in the myriad of lefts and rights. By the time he realizes where they are, they're several steps from the entrance to the common room. Robin immediately stops, and Beast Boy jerks to a stop, too, pulled back from Robin's sudden stop. They stand in silence for several seconds, before Beast Boy speaks.

"Uh, Rob? Whatcha doin'?"

Robin stands dazed for several seconds, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for his foggy mind to come up with the words it takes to communicate what he wants. In the end, he can't come up with more than one word.

"No."

Beast Boy looks at him in confusion, and the thoughts that he wants to say struggle sluggishly inside his head, trying desperately to make it to his lips. He can't go in there, where the team likely is. He can't be around them, he's a danger. He can't be a good enough leader around them, so he'll try and protect them from afar. But how can he make Beast Boy understand that when he can't even speak? But Beast Boy's expression softens just a fraction, as if he understands what Robin means without him having to say it.

"Hey, bro, no worries. The others are in there, and we'll watch over you. You're safe."

"Not… not me. You. You."

"Bro." Beast Boy grabs his hand again, and this time he doesn't have the strength to resist. " We are fine. You, on the other hand, are not. So come on, dude, we're worried about you." And damn, if Beast Boy didn't have some killer puppy dog eyes, even in human form. Robin allowed himself to be pulled along without resistance, this time.

If I'm closer, I can better protect them, he reasons with himself.

If you're closer, you're more likely to hurt them, another voice whispers back. It sounds like a terrible mix between Batman and Slade's voices. Robin tries his best to ignore it.

When they enter the living room, he sees the other three Titans piled on the couch with a multitude of blankets and pillows, the coffee table in front of the couch covered in snacks and junk food. Each of them is in pajamas, and it takes him a moment to realize Beast Boy has also been in his pajamas during this entire ordeal.

Lazy, missing things like that. He chides himself.

"Friend Robin!" Starfire pops up from her place on the couch, and zooms over to him. She hovers close by looking like she wants to hug him, but is managing not to with great effort.

Both Starfire and Beast Boy hover close behind him, gently prodding him towards the couch without ever touching him. Somewhere in his befuddled mind he realizes that everyone is being incredibly gentle with him, but he can't seem to understand why that's odd.

He is eventually seated on the couch, between Cyborg and a for-once-not-unwilling Raven.

"Take your shoes off. In your absence, we voted on a mandatory movie night, and as our leader, you have to be here." It takes him a second, but eventually Robin complies, fumbling with his laces as he tries to undo the military-regulation knots. His fingers are stiff and unwilling, and after a moment of fumbling, Raven lets out an exasperated sounding huff, and whispers, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." Small tendrils of darkness come forward, and slip into the knots, undoing them, before slipping around the tops of his boots and tugging them off. Belatedly, Robin realizes he only put on one sock that day.

He sits for a moment, unsure what to do with himself, before Cyborg pushes his chest back so he's in a more relaxed position. He flinches violently at the unexpected contact, but he can't quite manage any more energy to do anything else.

"Now, sit here, and relax." Raven says, once he's lying back some on the couch. He pauses for a second, not understanding.

"Relax?" He asks. Cyborg sighs.

"Oh boy." Beast Boy, next to Cyborg, tosses a blanket onto his lap. Cyborg takes a moment to spread it over him before he opens the plate on his left forearm, tapping away at the small computer in there. As he does so, Starfire grabs a bowl of popcorn from the table, and leans over Raven to set it in his lap.

"You should also eat some, Robin." Raven, next to the pink haired girl, nods in agreement, before adding onto her statement.

"I can also make some of my tea, if you'd like. That would help you relax some."

And finally, that word gets him to react to what's going on around him, mind finally cleared with his suddenly renewed single minded focus. He stands up quickly, frustration building in him.

"Relax!?" His half-socked feet crunch on the popcorn as he steps away from the couch. He only makes it another step before the forgotten blanket tangles between his feet and trips him. He catches himself in a stumbling step, his shins hitting the coffee table and stopping him from falling any further. He spins around, violence and anger in his every movement.

"How- how am I supposed to relax, when people are in danger, when you guys are in danger. Someone could be on their way to attack the tower right now and you want me to- want me to relax?" a bitter laugh breaks out of him. "Not that I can protect you guys very well, especially after what happened with Slade. God, it's all my fault, I can't let you guys get hurt because of me again. What kind of leader am I if I do? What kind of friend?" His chest heaves as he finishes his tirade. The others look at him, stunned.

They stare at him in silence for several seconds, watching as he stands there, chest heaving. Before anyone can do anything, Robin's knees buckle, and his vision goes black.

Robin comes to as he's trained to, all at once and without any movement. Because of this, he's privy to the conversation around him.

"-operation Sleepover definitely failed." and, wait, what? That's definitely Cyborg… but what on earth is operation Sleepover? Robin waited several seconds to see if they would clarify, but after a few murmurs of assent- from, he assumed, the other Titans- the others went silent. He figured it wouldn't make much difference now to pretend to sleep, so he opened his eyes and sat up.

The reaction was immediate, from both his body and his friends. He felt a bone deep tiredness, like lead in his joints, air thick in his lungs. His friends on the other hand, exploded into motion, swarming around him. Their voices overlapped, even Raven speaking quickly and looking worriedly at him. He couldn't understand a single thing they were saying, so he finally intervened.

"Guys!" his voice, although raspy, cut through the other's voices. He cleared his throat. and went to rub at his eyes, before remembering the mask placed there, and wished for the umpteenth time that Batman hadn't forced him to hide his identity.

"Why am I-" immediately the clamor rose again. "Guys! Come on, seriously, I can't understand you. Will one of you please explain why I can't remember how I ended up in the infirmary?" silence as they looked at each other for a few seconds, before Cyborg spoke up.

"Short version? You passed out, we think from exhaustion." Robin nodded, confused, but trusting the other teen to tell him the truth.

"And the long version?" again, Cyborg hesitated. But this time, surprisingly enough, it was Beast Boy who spoke up next.

"We… we had a plan. You've been, sort of, high-strung? These past couple of days. When Cyborg checked some cameras, we saw you'd been patrolling all night, and we were worried that you hadn't had any sleep. So we made a plan to like, get you to sleep? We figured we'd make some place where you could be safe? Then maybe you could sleep? It sounds kinda dumb, know that I say it but, you know. That was the plan."

"And then I came in there, and passed out. Yeah, it's kind of coming back to me now."

"What is it that…" Raven, uncharacteristically, seems somewhat at a loss for words. Starfire asks the question for her though.

"What were you so afraid of?" Silence, and each of the Titans stares expectantly at him. Robin looks down at his gloved hands, and makes a decision.

He reaches up, and pulls off his mask.

"I was… I was scared of failing you. All of you. I was scared you'd never trust me again, after what Slade did to you. But I realize now… I don't trust myself. I'm not fit to bear the mantle of Robin, to be your leader, or to keep any of you safe." he finally looks up, meeting them all eye to eye. "My name is Dick Grayson, and I'm… I'm sorry."

Stunned silence for several seconds, before Beast Boy speaks up.

"Ok dude, you're gonna have to run that one by me again. Because what I think you're trying to tell me is that you're unfit to be our leader, and that you've let us down, right?" confused, Dick nods, before Beast Boy lets out a sigh.

"Yeah, no. Slade would have attacked us whether or not he had you under his thumb. And if you weren't there, he would have been able to kill us, and we wouldn't even be here. You got us out Ro- Dick. We trust you as the leader for a reason- we always know you'll come through."

Chest tight, Dick couldn't manage a reply. Starfire stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her voice came out slightly muffled against his shoulders.

"Hello Dick Grayson. I am Koriand'r."

Dick only had a few seconds to process what was happening before very slim green arms wrapped around both him and Koriand'r.

"Garfield Logan."

"Victor Stone. Glad to have you as our leader, Dick." Metal arms, warm and comforting despite their cool temperature, wrap around the trio.

Raven hovered a few inches off the ground and set her hand gently on Dick's back, about as close to a hug as she'd probably ever get.

"My name actually is Raven, but ditto to all the mushy stuff."

And maybe it was ok. Maybe he hadn't let the team down, maybe he was a good leader. All he knew for sure was that his team trusted him, and he trusted them.

(It would take a lot more than some hugs and sharing to convince himself that it wasn't all his fault. But for now, buried in the embrace of his family, Dick knew that he and his team were safe.)


End file.
